


Chemistry

by ConventionalScarlet (FrerardCake)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Kinda dark au, M/M, Soul Bond, Soulmates, barry didn't fall into a coma, dark!Barry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-02 22:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15805497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrerardCake/pseuds/ConventionalScarlet
Summary: "(...)Now we know the Bond s just a chemical reaction in our brains, somehow your brain's chemical composition is linked to your soulmate's.""Is that what makes people lose it when something happens to their soulmate?" Barry raised his hand more out of respect than anything. He was the only kid paying attention anyway."There is a  huge chemical imbalance in people's brains when something happens to their soulmate, yes... Similar to the imbalance we see in disorders like depression, schizophrenia and others. There are treatments being developed, Barry. People don't have to worry anymore-""But some people still rather go insane, right?"The teacher sighed sadly and nodded, looking at Barry like he knew it from experience, "Some people rather feel the imbalance than not feel anything from their Bond anymore, yes."





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Had this idea a while ago. Always wanted to write dark!Barry. In this pretty much everyone has powers.

The problem with the soulbond is that people sometimes would go crazy over it.

For years it was easy, never meeting your soulmate meant you’d push your feelings down and marry the first person to propose, have a kid and have someone to share a house with. The ones who did go crazy over never being bonded with their soulmate were diagnosed with hysteria and other made-up mental illnesses.

It was bad enough, living filled with what ifs and knowing that somewhere out there, maybe in another universe or another timeline you did meet your soulmate and were living happy, fulfilled lives together.

And then the particle accelerator exploded and it was all pure chaos.

Barry could tell his soulmate was affected because he could feel the chemicals in his brain changing. What he knew about his soulmate wasn’t much: he knew they were probably older because Barry was born bonded, he knew they were very smart because at night sometimes Barry could feel them concentrating on thoughts and then… Then he knew they were an adrenaline junkie because Barry would get random bursts of adrenaline followed by a great feeling of pleasure.

At first he thought it was nothing, he thought the weird and off feelings were just his own getting very confused after being struck by lighting. He was trying to get his body to slow down, trying to figure out how the hell the explosion mixed with the lightning and the few chemicals he had been working on caused him to me moving at super speed (he knew it was super speed and not anything else more out of a feeling than any scientific observation). Barry was trying very hard to get his body back under control that it took him a few days to notice his soulmate needed help.

It was the weird lack of adrenaline that first caught up to him, then the lack of endorphins… He noticed his soulmate wasn’t feeling anything other than cold.

And it was all Barry had, for months all Barry felt was cold on his soulmate’s end.

When he got caught by Eiling he knew he’d never be the same again. He'd never live the same, all he wanted to do since he lost the bond was run freely and that bastard took that from him. Made him feel like he had nothing else left.

Nothing to love.

Nothing to enjoy.

Nowhere and no one to run to.

Nothing to lose.

So maybe he did use his brain to get out of the military base, maybe he took every single other metahuman along with him, freeing them from that horrible prison no one deserved to be in. And maybe he killed one or two people.

No one could prove anything since there was no such thing as a metahuman research facility in Central City.

He ran for hours after he was finally free, enjoying the peace and calm the running gave him, enjoying his City and everything good it had to offer.

He saw his ex-girlfriend at work. He saw his dad in Iron Heights. He saw his mom in the cemetery.

And now Barry had a new home and a new family and even though the cold was still there, he had other things to focus on: saving his own kind from the horror of humanity and bringing down the military. The second part was more of a ten year plan than a vision board.

Oh. Barry really should do a vision board.


	2. 1- Cold

Sirens and the color red were never something Barry thought he’d be able to love but here he was, literally vibrating with all the energy going through him at these stimuli. It meant he was finally free, it meant he could do whatever he wanted again and for a second it was almost enough to warm up the empty feeling inside him.

Almost.

By the time he was standing on the grass with the other metas to watch the secret lab burn down, most of them had already run away to wherever. It was fine, they still owed him and the one guy he needed to find everyone else was still right there with him, so it was okay.

“You never explained the plan to us, boss,” Rory said once the flames died down. He had turned his attention to his own burning hands.

Barry figured it was probably the feeling of using his powers freely for the first time in so long. He could feel it too, deep inside himself, the vibrations, the strength, the way things kept speeding up and slowing down simply because he had lost almost all the practice and control he had over his powers.

_ “Keep running, 876,” The voice came from somewhere in the chambers and Barry sped up out of anger. This was all he ever had to time to do anymore, run in this stupid treadmill with all the wires hooked to him… Being tube fed for maximum efficiency… And that voice always telling him to keep going, to go faster…  _

_ “I can hear your plans!” Barry screamed even though he knew they couldn’t understand him when he ran that fast. _

“Anyone still got a place to stay?” Barry tried to seem casual and cool, focusing on the ice inside him for strength but he knew everyone around him could tell he had just come back to them.

“I know a place big enough for all of us,” Vibe said, making Barry force his attention on him. He had to focus to properly understand him… Everyone was so slow.

Barry watched the weird oval mass slowly open a whole into nothing, forming shapes and sizes he could not understand quite yet. Vibe had talent for those things. He was connected to the very fabric of the universe, like he told Barry in their cell. 

Heatwave, Frost, the brothers and Piper all went through before Barry and Vibe. 

  
  
  


“Slow down,” He kept telling himself as he paced around the room. 

The clock wasn’t moving, the one fly in the room had barely moved her wings once since he tried to go to sleep. 

He was trying to go to sleep but couldn’t even sit down. Not here. Not like this, with the lightning crackling around him, distracting him with how gorgeous it looked around him. 

Five second he managed to slow down before his system picked up the pace again. 

He noticed nothing felt cold inside him when he was going fast. 

He had to get himself under control. He had a team to lead.

If you call it a team that is… Just a bunch of metahumans learning to control their powers living together in an abandoned lab was not a team.

_ “Sir, what do we do with this one?”  _

_ Barry used whatever strength he had left to look up at the man standing tall in front of him in military garb. The white hair and lines on his face didn’t quite match and the little flame of anger Barry could muster hated his guts on the spot. _

_ “876 huh? Throw it in with 222,” He shrugged, “See if it needs food like some others. Don’t want to kill another one.”  _

He wasn’t shaking. He was vibrating. It was alright, Barry. You’re alright. You’re Barry Allen and you’re okay. Don’t let those thoughts get to you. 

“Boss?” He heard the voice coming from the doorway and felt relief when it was in a normal speed. It was Rory. Barry liked him a lot. 

“Heatwave?” Barry turning to him at normal speed and offered the most genuine smile he could muster. This wouldn’t have worked without Heatwave’s loyalty. They’d still be locked up without him.

He quickly glanced at the clock and saw it was 10:30.

_ “Dinner time.”   _

“Just stoppin’ by to check on ya,” He shrugged one shoulder while leaning against the doorway holding a literally frozen beer.

“I appreciate it. I’m okay. How was the supply run?” 

“Smooth,” He held up the beer, “Vibe did a portal thingy and we were in and out with the whole stock in five minutes.” 

“Good,” Barry nodded and stretched his neck, turning his whole body to the pile of Star Labs clothing on the floor, “See you in the morning.” 

Rory grunted and Barry heard the door closing.

He changed into the sweats, not looking at the scars all over his body and found a comfortable position to sleep. He fell asleep faster than he thought possible.

  
  
  


They all talked so much over breakfast, it was easy for Barry to focus like this. 

Cisco and Caitlin, Vibe and Killer Frost, both worked on the particle accelerator, the very thing that gave them powers. 

Rory aka Heatwave and the Mardon Brothers were criminals doing the usual criminal stuff Barry used to fight against. 

Hartley, aka Pied Piper also worked on the particle accelerator. He had been fired but still. Kid had it hard on him.

This was now Barry’s merry band of Rogues. No one was innocent anymore. And was that poetic.

Barry liked his seat at the end of the table. There was something about it that made him feel like he really was the boss. Like he was finally important to someone like he had been important to his soulmate once. 

He didn’t let his body speed up this time to ignore the cold. He focused as best as he could and felt all the energy being put down. He also felt the lightning behind his eyes and he wasn’t sure if he could really hear it or if it was just in his head, but it was like there was a soft buzzing sound between his ears whenever that happened.

He noticed Piper frown and figured the sound probably was real even though no one else did seem to notice.

“What’s the game plan, Boss?” 

He took his eyes off Hartley and leaned back slightly on the chair, thinking. He had to tell them something. Somehow all these people were counting on Barry for something… For leadership actually. 

How could he be a leader if he could barely control his powers? 

_ “Cool down the room,” He heard that voice giving the orders, “If he can’t slow down we’ll do it for him. We’re nice.”  _

“First we gotta make our home… Homey,” He smiled and looked around the break room they had decided would be their kitchen, “go and rob a Target or whatever. Turn this place into your home. Be back here at 4. Except for you, Vibe. I need you for something.” 

“What?” 

He shrugged and reached for the last waffle left on his plate, “Data mining.” 

_ “He’s experiencing severe hypothermia, Sir. There are also signs of frostbite all over his body…” She sounded concerned. She… Dr. Candle or something like that. She was nice, she tried to treat them like people. _

_ “If he’s still vibrating, cool the room down. I don’t want him to move.”  _

_ He swore he felt his heart start to freeze by the time the cold stopped.  _

_ She was nice. She let Barry warm up before taking him back to his cell. She gave him chocolate too. _

He killed her too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have one more chapter coming out today so stay tuned!


	3. Madness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly thought this fic was just a dream?? that I never wrote it or started posting it??? Here is another chapter! Enjoy!

Vibe was really good with computers and Barry knew it almost the second they met. It was probably one of the first things the man had told him.   
So while everyone ran out to do their own thing, that being robbing Ikea or whatever, he sat down with his former cellmate in front of one of the fanciest computers Barry had ever seen and watched him work.  
“What exactly are you looking for?” Vibe had asked him after a while of blank staring at the screen and only then Barry felt like he had been snapped back to reality.   
Not used to powers yet, he kept telling himself.  
“I need you to get every single piece of information those army assholes had on us. Everything you can get your hands on, I need it downloaded here.”   
Barry cleared his throat and ran a hand anxiously through his hair, letting time slow down around him like it always seemed to want, this way no one could see the anxiety in his gestured every time he had to talk to someone about work.   
He got up and only then let town resume. He enjoyed the slight surprise on Vibe’s face at him moving in the blink of an eye. 

 

The forming ice was something no one could explain. It was named the coldest place on Earth since every single person who even tried to get in the forest to study it died almost instantly from the sheer low temperature.  
And if Barry didn’t find it fascinating, he’d know he was actually going crazy.  
So he made studying this ice cold place in the middle of the desert into his personal project, something to work on when he wasn’t working on taking care of his Rogues.  
Vibe kept working on the data collection, now being expanded to every single piece of government information they could get their hands on, Frost just did her own thing, checking on all the metas who had escaped, making sure no one was in danger or represented danger to others (because meta criminals, Barry came to consider ok competition, but he couldn’t have anyone killing one of their own kind, this wasn’t an x-men comic and they had to remember they were all together, united under Barry’s lead), Heatwave and the Mardon Brothers were always focused on a new heist Barry planned and the Pied Piper worked with Cisco when he could, always helping with his brilliant brain.  
Barry was okay with leading. 

Iris wouldn’t pick up the phone. Neither would Joe. Barry knew why but he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that the two people who loved him most after his father, the man who raised him and the woman he now saw as a sister had abandoned him. Forever.  
“Family is shit, boss…”   
Barry’s head snapped to fast towards the entrance to the room they had dubbed “speed lab” that it was fast even for him. He had to rub his neck for a second before his super healing kicked in and there was no more pain.   
He didn’t realize he had ruined the room until he licked his lips to talk to Heatwave.   
Chairs where everywhere, the couple of tables in the room were nowhere to be seen, the equipment VIbe used to monitor Barry when he ran was fried… And he had no memory of doing this.   
He liked Mick a lot for not being scared of interrupting one of Barry’s tantrums.   
“How did you know?”   
Mick shrugged and went over to one of the chairs and pulled it up so he could sit, “You’re a family guy.” 

He was sitting in his office with the one month anniversary of their amazing escapade approaching, dozens of different books all over the room, most of them dealing with the subject of absolute zero.   
He was researching his favorite topic: the ice forest (or ice hell, ice desert, cold desert… depending on the newspaper).   
Heatwave in there in the room, watching the fire that was born right out of his hand as if it was the most interesting tv show on the planet. He hung out around Barry a lot, especially when Barry was doing something important almost as if he didn’t want Barry’s attention, just his company.  
“It’s not an ice forest…” Barry mumbled and looked up to make sure he had Mick’s attention. He was standing right next to Mick’s couch without even realizing he had used his powers, “it’s a cold forest. It’s not made of ice, it’s just so cold everything froze.”   
Mick looked away from his flame and nodded at Barry.  
“So we need to send you, not Frost.”   
“Remind me again, boss, what’s with this place you like so much?” He wasn’t saying no.  
“We have to get to them before the government does.”   
“Because then they’d have the meta,” Mick sighed and sat up, “so ya sendin’ me to freezeland just to prove your theory.”   
Barry felt personally offended at that comment. It implied Mick wasn’t important to him, it implied Barry didn’t care about his metas, it implied he just had a petty desire of revenge and a dumb and unfunded paranoia against the government and Barry didn’t like that.  
“I’m not crazy, Heatwave.” Barry had him pressed up against the wall in half the speed of light, which didn’t move the other in the slightest.   
Barry didn’t understand the other’s reactions half the time, lately he didn’t really understand anyone’s reactions to most of his own actions but he knew there was talk about him losing his mind just like his dad had.  
Mick didn’t even blink.  
“Never said you are, boss. I was thinking of going there anyway just to see what the place is like… What with me being hot and all.”   
Barry took a quick couple of steps back and nodded at the other man, offering a small smile. He held the lightning inside even though he felt it trying to crawl out through the scars under his clothes.   
“Sorry about that…” He motioned at Mick’s general direction.  
The other man just shrugged him off.

Barry was… lonely. He only managed to name that as the emotion the day Mick and Hartley figured they were soulmates. All because he missed Heatwave’s company while he was working on researching a good enough target for the metas to get on their feet financially.   
Barry reached down deep inside and nothing but the cold said hello. Nothing.   
When his soulmate was still alive he’d be able to feel him focusing on something or the way his adrenaline ran through the roof. And sometimes, in a few rare occasions, Barry could feel the bliss… The pleasure…   
He shook his head and left the blueprints on the table without a care then went to his bedroom and locked the door. He had no idea how this place was already feeling like home.  
Barry laid down on his bed and let his mind wander back to those amazing days when his soulmate was still alive, his soulbond was still strong and they’d have these few moments to themselves… Feeling what the other felt… Existing as one even though they were so far away.  
Barry missed them so badly. 

“You did what?!” Mardon all but roared and send a ball of ice the size of a basketball right at Barry’s chest.  
“You know… We thought you were a little crazy yeah, but a good leader, after all you got us all out of that hell… But sending Rory to die?! That’s just insane, Flash.”  
Barry didn’t react. He let the ice ball hit him and send him flying across the room, he let Mardon talk all he wanted because Barry was more than sure he had the upper hand.  
Vibe knew it and left the room.  
Killer Frost knew it and tried to pull Mardon back, tell him if anyone could make it in there it was Heatwave with his literal fire.  
Hartley was in the corner of the room, hands over his ears and eyes closed to block out everything.   
Barry let the speed (speed force) take over his body and watched in an almost frame by frame scene as Mardon started a hail storm inside the cortex… He turned to look at Hartley, sassy and asshole Hartley who looked like a little kid right now without his soulmate, scared and trying to block out all sound from the fight and, Barry supposed, also the lightning forming around Barry.  
Just as he started pacing around the room trying to figure out what to do, Barry saw the slight shift in the security cameras showing Mick walking in with someone in his arms.


End file.
